Background of the Study

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Learning English as a foreign language involves four skills that have to be mastered. They are speaking, reading, writing, and listening. Beside those four skills, students have to master the language competences such us grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, spelling, etc. Among those language components writing is also important to learn because writing can also to make communication. For example, people can share information, convey ideas, messages, etc. Writing is a process of communication among people to share information. Nurhasanah 2014 states that writing is an efficient learning process which is utilized to communicate information, clarify thinking, and learn new concept and information. In the process of writing, a writer shares and clarifies thoughts and feelings to readers. Writing is also a proc ess of communicating the writer’s idea to the reader in a written form and also states the purpose of writing is to convey ideas and messages. In the process of writing, a writer should explore her mind to find new ideas that make the writing meaningful. The ideas will be in a sentence, a paragraph and a text. There are some texts to gather the ideas such as Unfortunately, studying writing is uninteresting subject for some students during learning process because they have to memorize a lot of complex rules and terms beside learning the language itself. As a professional job, a teacher needs to apply an 2 appropriate method in the classroom in order to make an enjoyable classroom and to reach the objective of learning. Hence, teaching method is helping teacher to deliver materials. It is hoped that the students understand the materials easily. According to Patel and Jain 2008, method guides teacher how to teach effectively. They also add that method as the process of planning, selection and grading language materials and items, technique of teaching, etc. From those statements, it can be concluded that implementation of teaching method will decide the success of teaching. It is very necessary for teachers to know various types of methods of teaching English. The alternative method that can be used by teacher for teaching writing is Cooperative Learning. Cooperative learning is a method in which the students work in group to achieve the material and it also can increase the motivation of students itself. According to Olsen and Kagan in Richard and Rodger, 2001: “Cooperative learning is group learning activity organized so that learning is dependent on the socially structured exchange of information between learners in group and in which each learners in group is held accountable for his or her own learning and is motivated to increase the learning of other ”. pages 244 Cooperative learning is one of the approaches in teaching and learning activities when students come together in main group. The purposes of the main group are effectively to give support, help, encouragement, and assistance each member needs to make academic progress. It is supp orted by Hizbullah 2010 in “Teaching Simple Past Tense by Using Cooperative Learning ”. He states that cooperative learning is group learning activity organized so that learning is dependent on the socially structured 3 exchange information between learner in groups and increase the others’ learning motivation. Cooperative learning also has several advantages. According to Brown 2001, the advantages of cooperative learning are promoting intrinsic motivation, heightening self-esteem, creating caring and altruistic relationship, and lowering anxiety and prejudice. Although cooperative learning encompasses a variety of social objectives, it also improves student s’ performance on important academic tasks. It is supported by Arends 2012 who states that the mod el’s cooperative reward structure raises the value students place on academic learning and change the norms associated with achievement. As a research conducted by Putinesia 2012 in “ Mind Mapping as the Cooperative Learning to Increase Student’s Ability in Writing Descriptive Paragraph at Second Grade of Raden Fatah Junior High School ”, it is figured out that teaching writing using cooperative learning method has significant influence to increase Student’s Ability in Writing descriptive paragraph at second grade of Raden Fatah Junior High School. It is proved that cooperative learning encompasses a variety of social objectives and increasing students’ academic achievement. The previous study by Putinesia 2012 entitled “ Mind Mapping as the Cooperative Learning to Increase Student’s Ability in Writing Descriptive Paragraph at Second Grade of Raden Fatah Junior High School ”, is different with this study entitled cooperative learning applied to teach writing narrative text at grade VIII of SMP Muhammdiyah 8 Batu. However, the method used is the same, which is cooperative learning method. 4 Based on the reasons above, the researcher is interested in conducting the research about studying of teaching writing using cooperative learning method applied by English teacher at SMP Muhammadiyah 8 Batu.

1.2 Statement of the Problem